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Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co., Ltd.

The character Bluebeard is the villain of the fairy tale “Barbe Bleue,” one of the stories in the 17th-century collection Contes de ma mère l’oye (Tales of Mother Goose) by French author Charles Perrault. In the story, Bluebeard goes on a journey, leaving the keys to his castle with his new wife. He tells her not to go into one particular room, but she becomes curious, and when she opens the door to the room she finds the skeletons of Bluebeard’s former wives. Bluebeard returns, discovers her disobedience, and is about to kill her when her brothers arrive to rescue her. While similar stories exist in the folklore of other countries, the legend of Bluebeard may be based on the life of a rich and powerful French nobleman of the 15th century, Gilles de Rais, who was accused of having abducted, tortured, and murdered more than 140 children.

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